


And we were not afraid of winter

by Dr_Roslin



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Tragedy, Are HEA even possible?, Ben and Rey are love-starved and touch-starved, Ben has cancer, Canonical Character Death, F/M, HEA not here, Heavy Angst, I mean clearly I am not a very good writer because I could not write my way out of this, Lots of tears, Mentions of Cancer, No HEA, No pregancy, Nothing but sea spray and tears, Other half, Please Don't Kill Me, Sailing, Sea Spray and Tears, True Love Lost, no fix-it, seriously though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:35:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26200492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dr_Roslin/pseuds/Dr_Roslin
Summary: A girl, a sailboat and True Love Lost. Rey can never be sure whether the droplets pouring down her face are sea spray or her own tears.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Kylo Ren/Ben Solo
Comments: 53
Kudos: 26
Collections: Reylo Hidden Gems





	1. The long way round

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reylo_addict](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reylo_addict/gifts).



> CW: Main Character death, Cancer, NO HEA
> 
> I know it can be triggering for some, so please, proceed with caution, and if there's anything you want me to add in terms of tags, please let me know. If you just want to walk away, I completely understand.
> 
> It's based on my extended microfic series from July and is gifted to Reylo_Addict, without whom this would not exist. Scream at me, though, I couldn't find a way out of this that would allow for a traditional HEA. (I mean, if you tilt your head and squint there's one in Battlestar Galactica speak, but really, there is just a lot of angst.) 
> 
> The original microfics which make up the first chapter are available in my microfic collection:  
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/25720516/chapters/62454229  
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/25720516/chapters/62454274
> 
> All I can promise you is sea spray and tears.
> 
> Title inspired by 'Non, je n'ai rien oublié' from Charles Aznavour  
> Entire work inspired to some degree by Anna Kendricks' 'Cups.'

Poe never got why she insisted on the longer route, but then, he wasn’t as proficient a sailor as she was.

Looking out at the horizon now, where the rays of the sunset hit the water, she marvelled.

‘It sure would be prettier with you,’ she told the ghostly presence at her side.

*

They'd shared this view, the last time she'd sailed this sea, her breath on his as he took his final.

The sickness had ravaged his once formidable body by then, sapped every ounce of his once inexhaustible will.

All he'd left her with was a photograph.

'Be with me,' she whispers.

*

The stars had been luminous that last night, as if to welcome him home, though he never took his eyes off her face.

“Be with me,” she whispered, then as now, her voice cracking.

He’d tried so hard to stay, with her. She’d had to tell him go. Let the pain go.

Still, she mourns.

*


	2. Sure would like some sweet company

He’d blown into her life like a hurricane, all crooked shy smiles and the surprising laughter he seemed to reserve for her, his dry sense of humour acting as a balm to her wounded soul. Larger than life, he was, unlike any man she’d ever met, though he’d always told her that it was _she_ who was remarkable, it was she who was stronger than she knew. 

So. Blown into her life and into her home and into her heart within days. Neither had spoken much about it, he’d just blown into the small port with little other than a backpack and a prescient knowledge of sailing. The first day he’d wandered on the dock into her slip looking for someone to ship on with and he’d almost walked into the sea staring at her. The next day he’d just shown up, apparently in the hopes she’d let him on board. She did. The pattern repeated itself every day that week, until one day he just stayed, though they’d known each other less than a fortnight. 

_Where are you from?_ she’d ask. 

_Nowhere._

_Where are you going?_

_Nowhere but here._

And he'd looked into her eyes like she was the sun and the moon and every star in the sky and she believed every word.

She’d get hints sometimes, of his life Before, of privilege and loneliness and conflict, of a family that had failed him and a purpose that had ended up leaving him even emptier than before. Unsure of his future, he was nonetheless hell-bent on killing his past. Left it behind, he told her, and he had no reason to go back for it, ever. 

It’s why they got on so well. Neither could see beyond this life. This present. It’s something she clings to, now.

She thought, sometimes, that that was the reason for why he walked so lightly, why he stood at times with a slight stoop to his massive shoulders, why he always hid his fierce dark gaze behind dark glasses, as if to apologize for taking up so much space, for being such an intimidating figure. As if to apologize or his very presence.

_I’m heading out tomorrow and I would sure like some company, what do you say?_

_I’d say I’ll like to be wherever you are._

A large man, but she’d known he was a teddy bear the moment she looked up into his eyes that shifted with his every mood and the light, from warm whiskey to rich chocolate to an deep mahogany brown. Though with her they were nothing but amber, the warmth of his love for her shining through. The moment he stared into hers as if to memorize every shifting shade of hazel. She'd known then, that, whatever he'd been in the past he was running from, he was nothing but a lost soul now.

_There you are._

_Here I am._

*

Alone, together, at the end of the long summer days spent on the water, after they’d sailed through sun and surf and the twilight hours that stretched out the horizon for days, after the hours spent in the sun that lightened his hair and tanned his skin, granting him at least the semblance of a healthy glow, after he’d fed her and loved her and read every draft of her work in preparation for publication, after all of that, he’d fold her into their bed in the narrow space below decks and breathe her in. Remind her.

_Nowhere but here. As long as you want me. As long as you can stand me. This._

Despite themselves, they slipped up sometimes, talked of the future. Of his dreams, of hers, of how they fit together, just as their bodies did, two pieces of a whole, the light and the dark. The bright and the solemn. 

She knew then, he’d gained some peace. That he was ready to reclaim his soul, purge himself from the dark stain of his actions that seemed to follow him everywhere. He’d told her he could never go back, that there was nothing waiting for him, in his previous life, that he’d done things he could never escape and hurt people he could never redeem himself to. 

The past was dead, he told her, he’d burnt those bridges, severed those ties with angry words and duplicitous deeds. There was no fatted calf waiting for him, no mythical home to which the Prodigal Son might return. There was only here, there was only now. 

There might be, however, a _then_. Might perhaps be a _them_. 

Perhaps that would be enough.


	3. The prettiest of views

Smiling up at him on their wedding day, she’d sensed they’d turned the corner, that it was time, now, for them to move forward, together. Her bare feet gripping the wooden decks of her tiny sail boat, her prized possession, one she'd earned through hard work and sweat and talent, earned by all that it took to make her own dreams come true, she looked up, way up, into the gentle eyes of her husband, whose own eyes for once seemed calm and free of shadows. 

She hadn’t wanted much for her wedding, just twilight and Maz, the gentle old local minister, and old friends and _them_ , out on their home, out at sea, her flowy white dress waving around her calves and the bouquet of wildflowers in her right hand the only indication of the events of the day. He'd held her left the entire time. They’d spoken of rings, though she hadn’t really seen the point, given the way everyone knew they belonged together just by the way he looked at her. Just by the way she touched him. 

It was exactly what she'd wanted, since she'd ever felt free to dream of a wedding, since the day she'd met him. She'd wanted old friends and the sea and wildflowers in her hand.

He’d wanted only her. 

When the time had come, he’d wrapped a stem from her bouquet around her finger as she did the same for him, as he reminded her of his promise that they’d go looking for something more durable the next time they were forced to leave their idyll for the complications of the nearest town. They'd said their vows in the waning sun as her small coterie of friends had borne witness and had kept their eyes on each other and he'd kissed her as if she was made of glass as their friends had cheered. Later, after he'd steered them home with his arm around her waist and her head on his shoulder, she’d carefully pressed the twisted stems into the cover of her favourite book to dry safely while they sailed into port to treat their small party to dinner at the local watering hole, their faces soon shiny with white wine and the juices of the fresh mussels of their wedding feast, seasoned with laughter and fresh herbs. 

And even though she’d felt obligated before their wedding to break their unspoken agreement and ask if he was sure there was truly no one, no family, found or otherwise, to join them in celebrating their union, and even though he’d inadvertently made her cry by asking her to finally tell him of the family that would ideally have been there to go with the one she’d made over the years, it was worth it, in the end, to have no uninvited ghosts lingering to disrupt the festivities. In the end, it was as she'd always dreamt, only them and their small party made up of those friends she’d gathered together in a small bundle of family during these past years in that quiet place that had become her home.

Maz and Poe and Rose and Finn.

It had been worth it, all the time and reassurance they'd invested with her small family - with Maz and Poe and Rose and Fin - when at their wedding she'd watched how easily if quietly her new soulmate had inserted himself into their lives, his warm soul fitting neatly into the boisterous dynamic they’d already established. The easy teasing with Poe over anything and everything, the quiet warmth he shared with Rose as his large frame bent solicitously to catch her passionate views on literature, the exclamations of ‘exactly, exactly’ in his deep, soft baritone his main contributions to the discussion. The way he and Finn, long her closest friend, had so quickly fallen into the habit of texting each other regarding anything and everything. ‘It’s nice to talk with someone who understands,’ Ben had told her once and she was granted a glimpse of what that meant as he and Finn talked quietly at the wedding that was everything she’d ever dreamt of. She'd felt her heart expand in that moment, grateful that Finn could offer him that, that he could offer it to Finn in return. 

In that moment, with the juice of the mussels on her chin, with her husband’s hand holding hers under the table and with their friends’ laughter lilting around them, she’d suddenly known what everyone had always meant when they’d spoken of coming home. 

Her soulmate had kissed her then, basking her in his love, and everything had clicked quietly into place, the two of them coming together as one. 

Home. She’d made it there and it was everything she could have imagined.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am sorry, am SO sorry. Look away now - the next couple chapters are painful.  
> Am warning you now - here there be dragons.  
> Seriously, you could just stop now, here, and consider this the HEA.
> 
> Or - you could come with me and cry.


	4. Sights to give you shivers

Almost six months after Ben’s funeral (a day she barely remembers), she freezes as she catches slight of the diminutive figure walking towards her. Trying to shake off the feeling of someone having walked across her grave, she lowers her eyes to focus instead on the job at hand, scrubbing the decks of her little sailboat with extra fervor. 

‘They tell me you’re Rey,’ the woman says, her slightly husky voice at odds with her small frame, in an almost accusatory in tone and she answers without looking up, unwilling to engage even slightly with someone she can tell is about to force her to face the complications of her life.

‘Been so all my life.’

‘Then you’re going to tell me everything you know about my son.’

Startled, she looks up at the older woman, who had removed her sunglasses, and whose eyes, which although chocolate in colour as opposed to amber, have a hint of that same softness that always managed to capture her unwavering attention. She’s tiny, this woman, delicate in frame and she barely reached Rey’s chin, but is clearly strong and who holds Rey’s gaze with a laser focus. As she catches a hint of the wetness blurring her vision, a blurriness that Rey would have been happy to pass off as anything but tears, the woman's delicate patrician features soften, at least to a degree, and she leans suddenly on a nearby post, as if she's grateful to have something to hold her up in addition to her legs and her own determination.

‘Tell you what, child, you tell me your story, I’ll tell you mine.’

*

The light is dying now, fading into that gentle twilight that Ben loved. Unable to stay on dry land a moment later, her palms sweating, her heart pounding, the adrenaline spiking as she hurried to cast off as quickly as possible, desperate to escape the panic, Rey felt as though she’d almost run down the dock to the sea. 

She’d promised to take Leia – _Leia, Ben’s mother’s name is Leia_ – to her son’s grave in the morning, and the prospect of that, of being there once again, of being there with someone _else_ , of having to acknowledge for the millionth time that he is gone, gone forever, that he was torn from her despite his every promise, fills her with an almost controllable dread. Despite her best intentions, despite her commitment to be there for his mother, she knew there was nothing for either Leia or herself in that forsaken tomb. His tomb was in as beautiful of a spot as she had been able to find, the view of the sea in the distance a gentle reminder of all that lived on beyond them, Ben's final resting spot still failed to evoke in her any emotion other than overwhelming rage. She doubted Leia would feel anything different.

Having the tombstone engraved had almost broken her, the dates of his birth and his death spelling out in sharp relief the unescapable fact that he’d been all of 37 at the end, a fact made even more painful by the realization that she’d known him for only a handful of those years.

Still, she'd promised Leia she'd take her, so take her she would.

‘He’d cut us out of his life,’ Leia had told her earlier that day, as she looked out the window of the diner at the sea or at the coffee cup cradled in both hands or at the rough wooden table they’d sat at, everywhere, anywhere, but into the eyes of her son’s widow. 

‘He thought he’d gone too far to the dark for anyone to love him. For us to love him. I thought I saw him, at his father’s funeral, about 10 year ago now, just at the very edge of the cemetery, hidden behind the trees. I could have sworn he was there, but by the time his uncle Chewie got there, he was gone. They had been so close, Ben and his father, and I thought that, I think that my husband's death shocked him into re-evaluating what he was doing, even if he didn’t disappear until six months later.’

‘We’d failed him – I’d failed him - so often when he was younger that I think that when he come to a realization of the impact of his actions as an adult, of the impact of all that his new ‘family’ had coopted him into, I think he felt that we’d never be able to welcome him home. I just wanted him back,’ she whispered into her coffee cup after a moment, as if it was a truth too painful to share with anything or anyone other than her coffee grounds. ‘I just wanted him back, Rey. I didn’t care what he’d done, didn’t care what he’d have to do to get back to me. I just wanted him back with me. I just wanted him home.’ 

‘He loved you so much it hurt,’ Rey had told her, the truth spilling out of her in a burning rush as she tried to reassure her late husband's mother. She’d lost track of how many times Ben had told her that, during that golden period of their wedding, and during so many late night conversations afterward.

‘Rey –‘

‘No. Please,’ she’d told the older woman, ‘let me give you that. He loved you so much. It burnt him, how he’d never be able to go home to you.’

‘I tried so many times to get him to come home. I guess he just thought he wouldn’t have been welcome, but I always tried to tell him. I was always there, waiting.’

It wasn’t until after his death, his mother had told her, that Ben's final letter had been delivered. It was from a lawyer whose name she hadn’t recognized. Ben had told her so many things, Leia had told her, granted her so much forgiveness for everything that had transpired – 'more forgiveness than I deserved,' she’d said – but ultimately it was the note he’d scrawled carefully at the end that had led her here. 

_You always told me you hoped that one day I’d find peace, he’d written at the bottom of the heartrending final letter to his mother. After you get this, if you can, find Rey. She’ll tell you what that looks like, me at peace._

_Find Rey, and if you can, give her Grandma Breha’s ring._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The way I've been avoiding posting the chapter because I know all of you are going to hate me. Okay, I'll tell the truth - I hate me. The whole thing just came pouring out of me and then I read it and - ow!
> 
> Anyway, please forgive and know it hurts me as much as it hurts you. Enjoy the pain!


	5. When I've gone

He hadn't told her; about the letter, about the ring, about the times his family had tried to reach out. It hurts, though she tries not to let it, hurts because she was so sure they'd told each other everything. Everything hurts, though, now, so she tosses this on the pile that never diminishes, which only sits tangentially lighter on her shoulders some days as opposed to others. 

Today is not one of those days.

She looked at Leia’s mother’s ring now, sitting on her left hand. The sea breeze was gentle in their hair this afternoon, the sun was shinning so bright, and their hearts were equally broken, staring out at the sea. 

‘He sold his grandfather’s bike. That’s what he told me. He knew he was dying and he didn’t want me to worry. About funeral costs. So he sold his grandfather’s bike and deposited the money in my account. So I didn't have to worry about paying any of that.’

Leia was obviously trying not to cry. 

‘He called the family lawyer for that one. He told him he didn’t want to talk to us, to any of us, really, but he needed money, though he wouldn’t say why, and he knew his uncle would want the bike. It was a Triumph, an original, something my brother had always had his eye on while Ben was growing up, though he couldn't have cared less about it after the lawyer told him Ben had called. The lawyer tried to give him the money, anything he needed, even before he talked to us, but Ben wouldn't take it, and he wouldn't let us contact him. We tried to get in contact with him, at that point, every day, but no matter how the lawyer tried, he’d never return our calls.’

‘He was worried, about what you’d say, if he ever did.’

‘Just that I loved him. That I wanted him home. That if I had known about you, I would have wanted you, _both_ , home.’ Leia took a moment, clearing her throat. ‘That I would have wanted to have met you. That I would have wanted to share what time he might have had left.’

Rey nodded, thinking. 

‘That might have worried him too, if you would have welcomed me, particularly at this point. We weren’t ready, at that point, to be separated. Ever.’

‘That wouldn’t have been a problem, Rey. We would have welcomed you, especially since you were bringing our baby home. We wasted so much time, being angry with each other, so much time worrying about the legacy of the past. I can’t imagine we would have wasted anymore.’ She paused. ‘And I don’t want to waste any time now. Come home with me. Or, at least, let me come see you again, talk some more.’

After Leia had left Rey sat there, for quite some time, their final conversation ringing in her ears. 

_"They worry about you, you know, your friends. I could see it, from the looks on their faces when I came looking for you. And they’re not alone. The locals have started whispering, they tell me, about the girl followed by a spirit so strong you can almost see him hovering."_

_She’d teased her mother-in-law, then, though she’d had to struggle not to be defensive._

_"You’ve started to listen to ghost stories, now Leia? "_

_"I don’t want you making my mistakes, Rey. You’re what, 28? I loved my son too, you know I did, more than anything, but he’s not coming back, and I don’t want you ending up spending the next six decades or so alone. Maybe you’re not ready to give him up, yet, but you need to be ready to do so, eventually. Let him go, eventually. I'm not saying forgetting him, but Rey, I don't want to see you spending the rest of your life grieving."_

_Let the past die, she heard Ben whisper again in her ear._

_Be with me, she answered, even as she saw the ghost by her side grimace slightly, saw him gnaw on the inside of his mouth, twisting his beautiful mouth she wished she could touch._

She’d tried it explain it once, to Finn. About soulmates. About how half her soul had died that day, with Ben. About how hers was his, his was hers. That was the nature of soulmates, had been since the concept had been first explored by the ancient philosophers. One soul, two people. You would spend your entire life looking for your other, and if you’d been lucky enough to be destined to experience the glory and the pain of having a soulmate, once joined, any permanent separation was damaging, to both parties. In one died, the damage was permanent. There was simply no other way she could think to explain it.

 _My heart’s not just broken, Finn_ , she’d tried to tell him. _It’s like someone ripped it out and filled it with a nest of hornets._ The buzzing, the pain, the agony, the sense of her essential being having been ripped out of her, _forever_ , never diminished, never ended.

Though, at least it faded out on the water near where he’d left her, since she felt closest to him there. Felt it easy to bask in his presence there. Sometimes she could even see him, standing next to her, and she knew why people whispered about her when they sensed him standing near her, his presence almost physical. It comforted her, having him with her, as present as her shadow, as unhealthy as that might seem. In life he’d been everything she’d ever dreamt of, why wouldn’t she welcome him as her companion even after death?

She wasn’t sure that was even possible, but it was a lovely dream. 

Standing there, on the deck of the sailboat they'd crewed together, in the place she’d lost him to gods before his time, she felt the breeze blow through her hair and gently against her skin, and used the memory of his voice to batten down the hatches of her anger. 

‘It’s still a lovely view,’ she told him, sensing again the shape of him by her side, looking at the stars as they poked through the mist. ‘But it still would be prettier with you.’

_I’m tired of mourning alone._

_Be with me._

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry, you can scream at me anytime.
> 
> [@RandomBks](https://twitter.com/RandomBks)


End file.
